After several decades of existence, the neighborhood-run Orchard Street Pump House community center could soon acquire an official contract with the city of East Lansing.
Positioned in the heart of the Bailey Neighborhood, the pump house serves as a center for community events, including exercise classes, ice cream socials, concerts, celebrations and several other neighborhood activities.
East Lansing City Manager George Lahanas said the pump house has grown dramatically throughout the years. Expanded use of the building made it necessary for the city to consider creating a contract with the Orchard Street Pump House Association, he said.
“The staff and council wanted to come up with a method that would allow them to continue to use the building the way that they’ve been doing,” Lahanas said. “The contract provides for the Pump House Association to continue using it, it explains what their obligations are and solves issues of liability.”
Bailey Neighborhood Association Chair Konrad Hittner, who organizes events for the pump house, said the contract is a necessary change.
“If somebody other than a city official is going to be in charge of the building, the legislative body really needs to delegate that authority,” Hittner said. “It just makes official something that has been around for decades.”
The pump house was built in 1934 and was used to store chemicals such as fluoride that were added to the water system to make it safe for consumption. In 1972 when the building was no longer being used to store these chemicals in 1972, officials wanted to tear it down and leave a concrete block structure to cover the pump to keep using the water well for the city’s water system.
Former Bailey neighborhood resident and Orchard Street Pump House Association founder Jerry Mattson said he and other neighborhood residents were able to secure $27,000 in grant funding to turn the building into a community center.
Since then, Mattson said the pump house has continued to succeed as a functioning and beneficial part of the neighborhood.
“The current board has maintained the uses I that I’ve (put into place) and added some primary and new events that happen at the pump house,” Mattson said.
One of the newer events the pump house offers are monthly concerts and an annual concert series called the Pumpstock American Roots Music Festival that Hittner said the community loves.
“It just serves as a neighborhood community center for whatever purposes the neighborhood and city are looking for,” Hittner said.
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